Passionate About India

This time, when I was actually thinking about the issue to cover in the TSI editorial, I had initially thought about writing how the Americans exhibited the true essence of democracy and proved that even if the American government might be inhuman in more than one ways, the common American is still left with humanity within himself. But at the last moment, I had to change my plan when I had a chance to glimpse through the latest copy of UNDP’s Human Development Report 2006. Well, for those who aren’t much enlightened about this report (you need not be in any case; after all, this enlightenment brings with it more depressing shadows than any radiance), to tell you in brief, this study essentially ranks the quality of life in terms of life expectancy, adult literacy rate, enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education and GDP per capita of most of the UN member countries on whom data is available. For any concerned Indian to go through this report is an agony since a glance shows

The verdict on Saddam is out. The striking aspect of this news coverage were the two contrasting scenarios that evolved in most of the media reports globally. One was that of the celebration (on account of the verdict) within the Shia community of Baghdad, while the other was the contrast of despair and angst amongst the Sunnis. This, perhaps, is not just about Baghdad alone. Throughout the world, reactions have been divided between the Shias or Sunnis. And I have a strong feeling that the ramification of this verdict would be beyond the capacity of Americans to control. Iraq would once again erupt in another round of violence of vengeance, and probably the Sunnis, who have been at the receiving end, would fight back, amply aided this time by the Sunni dominant nations of the Middle East. And if the US stays on, then all that would go back is the number of body bags.I am not trying to justify that Saddam did not get the right verdict, neither am I portraying him as a ‘would be’ martyr.

Finally the verdict is out. It’s death to Priyadarshini Mattoo’s killer. And after being anti -capital punishment for as long as I can remember, I wanted death for the killer and am celebrating the punishment. For years, I looked at death sentence from a purely academic perspective of the role of a civilised society and how society can help reform people through education... appreciating Kiran Bedi’s work to reform people and deeply appreciating the humanity displayed by Sonia Gandhi in excusing Rajiv’s killers... and believing that as an educationist, I should always believe that we can educate wrongdoers into becoming better citizens.To me, the Priyadarshini Mattoo case was just another case of rape and murder, which I felt would not get justice due to our limping judiciary. And to me, the only way to avoid more such cases was to speed up the judicial process so that the fathers of victims too don’t feel raped and murdered, while waiting for justice – like the family of the tandoor m

Imagine Osama bin Laden fighting the forthcoming American Presidential elections. To any true blue American, I am sure that this imagination is inconceivable even in their wildest of dreams. Unfortunately, for an Indian, forget dreams, even in reality our sensitivity does not move an inch in the event of occurrence of a similar scenario, which is just about to happen in India. It is nothing but most disgraceful that while our faint hope (or hollow rhetoric, if you will) of cleansing the extant Indian political system is wilting in front of our eyes, we are letting it happen as thoroughly hypocrite spectators. It comes as a blatant slap on the face of the already fractured judicial system and fragmented political structure that an extradited underworld don, Abu Salem, who is accountable for plotting and murdering hundreds of people in one of the most gruesome blasts in Mumbai in 1993, has the audacity to join politics, by contesting in the impending Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Mor